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Insuladom
Insuladom Motto: Without End Anthem: The Breeze Across the World Capital: Regius Official Languages: Elvish, Common Demonym: Insuladoman, Elf Government: *Ruler: King Harban Follium IV *Vice Ruler: Queen Jesamin Follium *Legislative Branch: The Court Established: 12000 BME Area: 600,000 mi^2 Population: *Humans: 5,000 *Dwarves: 3,000 *Orcs: 1,000 *Elves: 10,250,000 *Other: 1,000 Currency: Leaf, Bulls Geography Insuladom covers the small island continent that bares the same name southwest across the central sea from the human empires of North Lagordo. The island continent and its smaller neighbor Fraterlus are starkly defined by two zones. To the south are large open grassy field that are easily irrigatable and grow the elven kingdom's crops and offer grazing for many types of livestock. The northern half is dominated by a forrest of the tall magical trees known as magewoods. The barrier between the grasslands of the south and the forrest to the north is stark and to the edge of the forrest makes a distinct live wall between the two. The magical trees need a distinct supply of sunlight to survive and the start border shows the narrow band where the length of day differs the least between seasons. Rivers flowing from the forrest into the sea to the south provide ample water to the grasslands where the elves rely on it to feed their preferred crops of rice and grapes. History By far the oldest nation in the world, Insuladom was founded 15 millenia ago by the concordance of brothers in Regius. It signified the unification of the elves of the forrest and the elves of the grasslands into a single coherent country. Over the millenia the long lived race has watched with differeing levels of interest as nations of orcs, then dwarves, and now currently men have risen and fallen in succession. Long ago they identified the self destroying habits of these races and purged over expansion and unsustainable growth habits from their society. This isolationism was finally breached when Maramic trading galleys finally found something the usually self sustaining elves liked: Sugar. The South Lagordan crop along with spices, cotton, silks, gold and metal works were soon traded heavily with the elven nation for their valuable and much sought after magewood. However to combat their fear of outsiders all non-elves are restricted to the eastern trading port and outside of small occurances of needs of state none are allowed in the interior. Affects of the War For most of the War Insuladom kept out of the way while they let humans slaughter each other. As they had with so many other conflicts they relied on thier isolation to keep them safe and aloof of such squabbles. However some forces were sent to North Lagordo as a growing urge for a chance to bring family glory had bubbled up in some influential families. Insuladom learned harshly the deadliness of modern war and forces that were sent, coordinated by the Foundaiton of the Bear, suffered heavy casualties. Of every ten elves that went less than five returned and most with terible injuries that would take years of the best magical care to heal. It was learned during the negotiations at the Treaty of Port Assau that Insuladom had also hoped to gain a slice of Ocarrus for themselves. The largest contigent of Insuladom elves that lived outside the country could be found on the southern shores of the continent but their request was denied. Perhaps annoyed by this shun Insuladom has returned to its isolationist stance and has kept only cold formal relations with the other nations of the world. Culture & Religion Elven society is well known for three things, its xenophobia, its technophobia, and its incredibly slow pace. When someone lives for centuries, possibly even a millenium, things that seem frantically important to a short lived person seem trivial in comparisson. This stark contrast can be seen just by the way the elves mark time. While humans use clocks to measure hours divided up into 360 ticks and six days a week of varying importance elves measure time based upon the sun's location. Sunrise, Midday, Sunset, and Midnight are the most important signifiers of time and are generally when activity is highest throughout the day. Likewise Elves have little use for weeks or months and simply split the days of the year up into the four seasons. While most nations have some level of nobility and underclasses elven society is strictly ordered into such ranks. Noble families jocky heavily for position and standing based upon their rank in the High Court. Marraiges, alliances, partnerships, and occasional backstabbings help determine the rankings and some families are known to be more ambitious than others as to their rank. The long arching goal is to eventually intertwine one family's line with the royal line and achieving close to immortality in remberance amongsth the royal geneology tree. Elves generally worship a form of druidism that follows the guidance of the great tree of life located in the heart of the magewood forrest. This tree is believed to be the longest living creature on the planet and some even believe it may have been the first living creature from which all other life has been derived from. Elves believe in the cycle of life that all creatures come from the earth and in time will return to it where they will support new life again. Elven diet is heavily imbued with rice their favored crop. Meat is not too common in many dishes as the more devote druidic elves believe eating meat to be a great taboo. Industry and Business The source of most of Insuladom's wealth is from its magewood lumber. The elves maintain very strict controlls on the amount of lumber to be cut down, no more than to cause the least harm to the forrest and cannot be easily replaced by the forrest. And to the traders of the world's great annoyance the magically gifted trees cannot survive anywhere else in the world. This limited supply keeps the value of the crop incredibly high and sees a steady supply of wealth flow into the elven nation. Insuladom is also home to the foundation of the Eagle, the magically focussed great foundation specializes in magical skills and enchantments that they sell for exorbidant prices. Their favored item to enchant is magewood creating even more demand for their home country's cash crop. Appearances and speaking habits of people Insuladom elves are generally fair skinned and short, many less than 5 feet tall. Hair can tell someone a lot about an elf, white haired elves are generally forrest elves while brown haired elves can usually track their lineage to the grasslands. Eye color varies wildly along nearly the entire spectrum and is believed to be influenced by their race's magical inclinations. Often the brighter the color of the eyes the more magically gifted the elf but this rule of thumb is not always accurate. Elves who learn Common take pride in learning how to speak it perfectly, even perhaps better than its Marrimacn originators. Which makes them sound almost perhaps like a proper eloquent british speaker. Relations to other countries *The Empire of Vicmorta - Vicmortans are one of the best customers of the Eagles who supplied them with necromancy knowledge during the war. While the elves keep distant to all nations they respect Vicmorta's magical abilities. *The Maramic Empire - Maramic traders continue to supply Insuladom with the luxuries they have grown to rely on over the last few centuries. This reliance makes many of the elven elite uncomfortable and some have considered finding their own sources of these materials but for the forseeable future they will continue to trade heavily with the country. *United Corodo - Insuladom sees Corodo as the first human empire to fall and has kept cool relations with them after the war. *Coldrim - The elves have little reason to ineract with the northern Ocarrus nation and keep limited cool relations with them. *Butermarr - Little to no interaction *Highetest - Little to no interaction *Fairara - Many elves have found themselves in the southern tip of Fairara. This has created tense relations with the old human nation of the west. While at first they were welcomed as newcomers many of the elves there consider themselves Insuladom citizens first and Fairarians second. This has caused Fairara to start to consider regulation immigration and perhaps even forcing the elves out which could cause many problems. *Wytixca - The elves were not fans of the newly formed Orc nation. They saw the orcs of having lived their peak several millenia ago and creating a new orc nation would throw off the life cycle of the other races. They accept their existance and keep minimal relations but it is no secret they are not fans of the orcs.